This, as far as I know, is never mentioned in the text of the book.  I would assume he is middle-aged, but again, that's just an assumption.  I would also assume that he was born in Paris. To have ascended to his throne, he might have had to come from Paris.

During a Truant seige of Notre Dame Cathedral, he was "felled by an arquebus" when the King's cavalry...guard....archers, whatever, showed up and pinned the Truants in the square.  In other words, he was shot by a rhudimentary gun.  Not sure if death was instant.  Probably wasn't, but that's all we're told. He was currently leading an attack on Notre Dame in order to save Esmeralda.  However, the King's guard showed up and started massacring the Truants.  Clopin went about slaying men with a scythe, singing through his nose, before he was finally taken down.

Not much information is given in relation to this.  He's the King of Thunes, Prince of the Argotiers, Bishop of fools.  And also a cut-throat.  There's not much else about Clopin, other than that.  He makes his living through counterfeit begging, in which he fakes an illness, disability, or deformity in order to beg alms off people.  He also leads the Truants in The Court of Miracles.  He is apparently acquainted with Maitre Jacques Coppenole, a hosier of Ghent, though it's not said where they had met.

(from my bad translation of the original French) "Clopin Trouillefou, dressed in his royal insignia, was not less ragged.  His sore on his arm had already disappeared.  He carried in his hand one of those whips with thongs of white leather of which so used by rod sergeants in order to control the crowd, and that are called 'boullayes.'  He had on his head a type of hat circled and closed at the top;  but it was difficult to distinguish if it was a baby's burlet or a king's crown, so much the two things resemble each other." --Victor Hugo, "The Broken Jug," Notre-Dame de Paris

Clopin is a very practical man, probably due to his many years growing up as a vagabond and theif.  In fact, he could be said to be the most practical of all.  Following Hugo's romantic nature, almost all the characters have very romantic thoughts.  Quasi and his bells, Frollo and science, Esme and dancing, Phoebus and women, Pierre and poetry.  Clopin seems to be the only one who grasps the idea of not giving a flip unless it really, really matters.  Of course, not saying that Hugo exemplifies him.  Next to Quasimodo, Clopin is made out to be the ugliest character, and the foulest, and the most unadmirable.     But, then again, if Clopin is one thing, it's admirable.  Hugo uses him to parody King Louis XI and the aristocracy.  Clopin, in his Court of Miracles, mocks Louis and his running of the country.  Just like King Louis, Clopin doesn't seem to care about the people in his 'country.'  Unless, of course, directly incited to care, as with Esmeralda.  In which case, he jumps immediately to the idea of war (and the idea of pillaging).  And much like Louis, Clopin gives his people panem et circensis to keep them wholly amused and distracted while he goes about his business (the tower of debauchery in the Court of Miracles as compared to Louis' theory that letting them seige and seethe will keep them from doing worse things in the future).  And, in the end, Clopin holds no real power except as a figurehead, perhaps anoher comparison to Louis.     I personally would assert that Clopin was insane in the novel.  His actions aren't all coherent, but, then again, most people's actions in this novel seem far from coherent.     Clopin is obviously not a man of education (one of the few letterless characters in the book) and he has a natural talent for leading.  Despite the fact he couldn't really care for his subjects.  He's very "eloquent" in his speeches, and he's over-all a very attractive character, personality-wise.  This falls right into Hugo's constant contradiction between the ugly and the sublime.

Since the Clopin from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame has a very large internet following, his name has been researched exhaustively.  It means, basically, "hobbled scared fool."  To go into more depth, clopin is derived from an expression that means "to hobble along" or from the verb clopiner which also means "to hobble along."  Trouille is a word for fear with strong connotations, so that to use it in a phrase would be more like "scared to death."  Fou is both a noun and an adjective.  As a noun, it means 'fool.'  As an adjective, it means something idiotic, crazy, or foolish.     How symbolic is this name?  More like how obvious is this name?  Clopin is a play on Clopin's use of disability in order to beg money off people.  He will pretend to be hobbled so that he may earn alms.  I'm not sure what trouille would mean, except for in conjunction with fou, which would mean "scared crazy."  In which case, either his mere presence scares people crazy (like it did Gringoire, after learning he was going to hang) or he was scared crazy at one point.  Which fits in with my theory that he is crazy.     At any rate, the name is supposed to symbolize deformity, disability, and bad things.  Which is what Clopin and his fellow Truants are supposed to symbolize.

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This character seems to have been long esteemed by movies.  I suppose there's just something about a vagabond king which appeals to the common masses.  Well, either that, or they needed a leader guy for the Truants (which I believe is an essential part of every movie).  I also think that America has an obsession with the lowly man being as big as a king.  It's our thing with royalty, and the American Dream, and all that fun cultural stuff.  But seeing as quite a few versions of Notre-Dame are foreign, I suppose this isn't very accurate to calim in every case.  But, regardless, Clopin is a very flexible character, in all the different version. Though there is a use for Clopin that I didn't mention, and this characteristic of the King of Thunes comes out quite obviously in the 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Ernest Torrence as Clopin.  If anyone has noticed a certain trend in movies (it's blatant in Disney movies), it's that a girl only has one parent; being a father.  Hollywood, for some reason, really likes the girl/woman/female of the species to have just a dad.  I guess it goes along with being Daddy's little girl.  Anyhow, so that's Clopin's purpose in this movie (this is all going from a brief, bad summary I read somewhere).  He watches after Esme (rescued her from gypsies when she was young, so I'm guessing he's not the Gypsy King in this version), and warns her against Phoebus, when she starts seeing the guy.  In the end, when Esme gets kidnapped, he goes after her to help rescue her.  He takes on the position of father figure in Esme's life, and is always providing sound advice.  I could take the feminist stance and say that in the 1920's, audiences did not like to see a girl left utterly defenseless in the world.  So while she didn't have either Phoebus or Quasi to protect her, she had Clopin.  As far as I can tell, he's not really insane anymore as much as he's shrewd and loving.  Best guess. 1939 brought a much dirtier Clopin, played by Thomas Mitchell.  I don't know about anyone else, but I could just smell this guy through the TV.  He was very, very dirty.  Again, he took Esme up early in the movie (after Esme sneaks into Paris and hides out at the Court of Miracles) and looked after her.  Except for he was given a wife (played by Mina Gombell).  She didn't seem to have much of a point to me.  I guess to give Esme a mom?  Or perhaps to help humanize Clopin.  At the beginning, Clopin's portrayed as a kinda jerk.  I mean, he was going around stealing stuff, and then he ruined cute wittle Pierre's play....alright, maybe it's just me.  But no one could have been happy when he tried to hang Gringoire.  However, in steps the wife. "He's a doctor!"  Way to go, mom!  Didn't work, but you can't say she didn't try.  Clopin's got that I've-completely-lost-it glint in his eye again, so he's much closer to the original.  And he even dies in the end!  ('Scuse me, just drank a 4-day-old coke) (Back, but I woke up about eight dogs doing so)  But he has a touching moment with Gringoire;  something that doesn't happen in the book.  For, during the movie, though Clopin was king, Clopin was grouchy, Clopin was insane, Clopin was in dire need of hygeine skills, he developed a grudging love for the poet.  Actually...except for the fact he rallied the Truants together to rescue Esme, I could say he liked Gringoire better. And there's the 1957 version, with Philippe Clay as Clopin.  Yeah, I've already forgotten this guy.   Oh, no, I remember him now.  In this movie, just about everyone was a joker.  Jehan was a clown, Phoebus was a clown, Clopin was a clown.  In this version, hie's much younger than usually depicted.  He certainly looks less like a king than all the others, but then again, maybe that's a good thing.  After all, he's supposed to be the anti-thesis of a king....anyway, he shows a sort of caring for Esme, but not a whole lote.  That's let up to our good friend Matthias, Duke of Bohemia (note -- accuracy.  Whoo!_  Another thing to note about most of these movies, Clopin's usually called the King of Gypsies.  I would like to make it clear here, he was not the King of the Gypsies.  He was the King of the Truants, who were a group of people composed of beggars, vagabonds, theives, and exiled and ostracized races (Jews, Muslims, Gypsies, etc).  What I find amusing is that Clopin is always called the King of the Gypsies, but they stay accurate enough to the book to make him 9 times out of 10 caucasion.  You wish they'd make up their minds... 1982's Clopin (by David Suchet) was meeeean.  Esmeralda didn't want to dance anymore, and he just shoved her out there!  I'm not sure if Clopin really would do that in the book.  Everyone's under the impression that Clopin cared for Esme dearly, but, honestly, there weren't many if any scenes of Clopin expressing this deep parental love (true, he attacked Notre Dame for her, but remember, Hugo was using the irony that they were more interested in golden candlesticks than in Esme)..  For all we know, he could've beat her.  More than likely not, but still.  We don't know.  So, yeah, I would say that if Clopin, if made a bit crazier and made absolutely desperate to force people to play along with his ploys, then he would do that. By now, you should get the impression that this Clopin ain't a father-figure.  Well, he's not.  He does die in the end -- most of the Clopins do. But most Clopins die with some sort of message.  This Clopin's  message?  No honor among theives.  In his death scene, only two people mourn his loss -- Gringoire and a little person.  Gringoire goes off to save Esme.  The little person picks his pockets.  He doesn't contribute more beyond acting crazy with Esme at first, nearly killing Gringoire, and attacking Notre Dame. And in 1996 comes Disney's classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with the classic character of Clopin.  A character which, by the way, has a huge internet following.  Now, I shall speak blasphemously.  Don't criticize me -- just calling 'em like I see 'em.  The character in the Disney movie is more different from the original Clopin than any of the other versions.  I would point out that he actually has more in common with the Notre-Dame de Paris musical Gringoire, than with his original character.  In this movie, he's given the position of Narrator, Story-teller, Master of Ceremonies.  Basically, he's what moves the story along.  Now, really, I'll admit that there is a level of insanity to accompany Clopin here (he regularly conversed and argued with a little puppet) but you didn't see it much outside of song.  In fact, you didn't see Clopin himself  much outside of song.  Basically, up until the scene where Phoebus and Quasi stumble into the Court of Miracles (stay with me here, if you haven't seen this one), Clopin was just a guy who told stories.  He started out the movie explaining the exposition, and during the Festival of Fools, he only took an active role for a moment, to convince the crowd not to run away screaming.  Otherwise, he's completely free from the entire movie.  In the Court of Miracles, he reveals that he is the leader of the Gypsies (I don't remember him saying 'king' and leader itself is implied).  But he only has a few non-singing lines, and then he's captured with the other gypsies, and didn't have much of a part in the movie until the end, when he's made to sing the great finale.  Okay, that was just reviewing his part in the movie.  Now on to characterization...............he had none.  He was a goof, as one can assume from his bouncing-around-and-crazy-antics.  Far cry from the original Clopin, but we already established he's completely different.  He didn't care about Quasi or Phoebus.  He didn't even give the impression that he cared about Esme.  Though he did recognize her presence, so he knew she was alive.  And he seemed to like kids.  That's about all you can draw about him. Then there's Clopin from the 1997 TNT original The Hunchback, played by Jim Dale.  He so did not make an impression on me, I don't even remember him being in the movie.  I even remember Gringoire more than I remember him, and I knew Clopin's name at that time.  So I can't logically talk about him in this movie. 1998 saw the production of the French musical Notre-Dame de Paris.  Here, I'm going on the performance by Luck Mervil (and I know someone will call me on that spelling).  Clopin had a whole lot of energy in this play.  I would venture to say more than any other character.  From the beginning, he states who he is.  He is a (rather virile) man who is standing up for the rights of outcasts and foreigners.  He is their leader (again, not stated;  implied) and he looks out for them.  A real hero of social causes.  In one song, he shows that he thinks of Esme almost as a daughter;  the usual motif of father and daughter, nothing special.  And he dies at the end of this version.  I actually think the Disney version might be unique in their-not-killing-off-Clopin bit.  He dies in Esme's arms, telling her to keep up his cause.  I read somewhere that Gringoire took over for him, but this has got to be pure speculation.  He dies heroically, attacking Notre Dame to save Esme.  The thing about Clopin in this version is that he happens to be very virile, very young.  Instead of just a leader of outcasts, he's a leader with a cause.  He moves things along.  He may not be the narrator, but he is the most insistent presence in this play.  The only one who states the moral of the musical. Okay, it's going on 4 in the morning, so I'll finish up quick.  Clopin was fairly regular in all of the versions.  He didn't change much, like a lot of the other characters.  I don't know why Hollywood and the entertainment industry love him so much, but it has to be something.  Millions of Clopinphiles world-wide foudn it, obviously.  Though if finding out meant I'd have to spend money I don't got on tons of Clopin and Hunchback merchandise, I think I can live with ignorance.  I just know I'm going to get bad feedback on that comment.  And, yet, I don't erase it.  Must be the 4 am thing...

Back to Jehan                Return to Characters Page              On to Fleur-de-Lys This page (c) Misty Woodard, 2000-2001, all text and some graphics.  Graphics will be removed immediately upon request. Starting with the black-and-white picture in the applet *Thomas Mitchell as Clopin, (c) 1939 RKO Pictures Inc  (pic taken by me) *Illustration of Clopin, (c) 1996 Disney Corporation *Luck Meril as Clopin,  (c) 1998 Luc Plammodon?  (pic taken by me) All pictures used without permission